Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Customers using one of the new Irving ATMs download a mobile app and set up the transactions they wish to make when they reach the ATM on their mobile phone. They can then chose to have a QR code scanned by the ATM, tap their NFC phone against the ATM or have their iris scanned to authenticate themselves in order to complete the transaction they previously logged inside the mobile app.

This "grab bag" ID regime is interesting. Throw in Bluetooth, fingerprints, RFID and chip-on-card technology and the number of permutations of possible ID deployments goes up even higher. This is good news both for consumers and for business with ID management challenges.

Monday, October 26, 2015

In 2014, the Bhamashah initiative was refurbished with a broader coverage of gender empowerment, financial inclusion and family-based benefits. It now provides end-to-end delivery system for individuals and various family-based benefits of the government’s social welfare schemes — like the PDS, pension funds, health insurance, MNREGA and scholarships — through a centralised e-government platform by leveraging the enhanced electronic infrastructure of the state.

These transfers are made to the bank account of the woman of the house through the Bhamashah smart card, which also provides biometric identification of family members. The card is also a co-branded debit card with the participation of several banks.

The merits of financial inclusion are deeply rooted in citizen empowerment. Access to credit is a critical link between economic opportunities and outcomes. By empowering individuals and families to cultivate economic opportunities, financial inclusion can be a powerful agent for strong and inclusive growth. With women constituting half the population, their equal participation in society is imperative for sustainable development.

No wonder this man is smiling.

Amartya Sen

One of the important assertions Amartya Sen makes in "Development as Freedom" is that empowering women in developing countries through education and financial inclusion is a tried-and-true way toward economic development for a country as a whole.

He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics.

Biometric technologies can help make inclusion programs more efficient and more affordable.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

USAA tops 1 million biometric users(Houston Chronicle) — San Antonio-based USAA reported Thursday that more than 1 million of its members have signed up to use its biometric technology on its mobile app.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Biometric modalities include hybrid fingerprint / palm print, facial recognition, iris image, and voice recognition. The global biometrics market is $7.0 billion in 2014, rising to $44.2 billion by 2021. Biometrics revenue and device shipment forecasts are segmented by modality and market segment. There are four market segments, law enforcement, border control which includes government ID systems, workplace access, and consumer ID.

According to Susan Eustis, leader of the team that prepared the study, "Biometrics represent a multi-billion dollar industry because the devices provide personal identity protection. Biometrics is used by civil authorities to permit the organization of people into units of government that are a cohesive group of people, not intruded upon by outsiders. Biometrics provides a cornerstone of law enforcement agencies with fingerprint ID."

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Implemented by Save the Children, the exercise uses easy-to-use and inexpensive equipment to read students' fingerprints to record daily attendance.

The biometric information is then used to identify those students who meet the conditional threshold of 80 percent school attendance and, therefore, qualify for a cash transfer twice a term.

The cash transfer goes to their household head, whose biometric details have also been captured and linked to a bank account to facilitate electronic household cash transfers.

Many families in the developing world face difficult decisions about whether to invest in a child's education (even if it's "free") or to maximize the family's current earnings by putting children to work. Programs like the one described above have made a difference in the lives of millions in Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia and backing up the cash transfers with a biometric audit trail should help insure that available funds are used efficiently.

EU countries should lock up more failed asylum seekers, according to hardline plans the bloc is considering to increase the number of deportations from Europe.

The proposal is one of a series of tough measures — ranging from increased use of fingerprints to more funding for detention centres — that interior ministers from across the EU will discuss at a meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday.

Sources said that, during investigation carried out by AG Sindh office and Education Department, about 25,000 out of 155,000 recorded employees have been identified as ‘fake’ in the Sindh Education and Literacy Department.

They added that ghost employees were identified by the Deputy Accountant General Education, security and examination committee with the support of biometric system.

We haven't posted on ghost workers lately, but a 16% fake employee rate is noteworthy.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

There’s no point in arguing about which security solution is the “best”. It’s pretty clear that the future lies with individuals using a combination of security options, each making up for the weaknesses of the others...

So rather than try to prove that a new technology is the Holy Grail and should replace passwords, it’s time to educate the public to use more than one factor of authentication. Using multiple factors will certainly increase a user’s security more than using one factor alone, no matter how secure we believe that one factor may be.

Kyrgyzstan has gone hi-tech in its efforts to ensure as clean an election as possible.

Voters received their ballot papers only after undergoing an electronic fingerprint check. As the information was processed, the voter’s image popped up on a monitor. The screen flashed red when any irregularity was registered.

Atambayev said clean and honest elections were indispensable.

“We cannot have it so that one party or one family rules the country. It is important that we protect genuine democracy and that we have a strong civil society,” he said.

There were sporadic reports of technical difficulties with the electronic system, which was being used for the first time.

While limiting opportunities for ballot-rigging, the painstaking voting procedures did also slow things down and large lines were observed across the country throughout the day.

"Biometric vendors are experiencing tremendous growth on the back of the escalation of consumer-led adoption of biometric security. The adoption for payment purposes is a major contributor to this growth and Goode Intelligence forecasts that by 2020 it will contribute US$5.6 billion in revenue from $5.6 trillion worth of payments for companies involved in delivering biometric systems to the payments industry."

Welcome to the SecurLinx Blog

Here we draw attention to items of interest in the biometrics and identity-management landscape.

SecurLinx offers patented solutions that store, process and share biometric template information specific to the challenges of law enforcement, gaming and the security industry.

We see ourselves as building the bridge between Biometric Service Providers (BSP's) that create new technology and the end users that have a problem in search of a solution and who could not care less about the technology itself.

Contributors

SecurLinx Links

If you have a concern about any posting or comment being factually incorrect, please contact us. Please provide detailsof who you are, how we can contact you, what your interest is, and what your concern is. If something has been writtenthat is factually incorrect, it will be addressed. Anonymous complaints will be ignored.